Dead Souls
by EveAnnick
Summary: Dr John Watson has just become Headmaster at the most exclusive school in country. AU.
1. The Carriage

A small, rather smart, car drove through the gates of Hartlow School on the border between London and Hertfordshire. The man in the car was not ugly, but neither was he beautiful; he was neither too fat, nor too thin; he could not be said to be old, but he was not too young, either. His arrival in the town did not create any great stir, nor was it marked by anything out of the ordinary. This was Dr John Watson's first day as Headteacher at the most exclusive boarding school in Britain.

He had woken that morning and known that this was the right decision, the right change for him. After years working at inner city schools and failing academies John would be directing the education of a very different type of student. Hartlow's 'Old Boys' made the school famous in itself; politicians, oligarchs, a handful of sheiks - and John knew he would be selling a comodity to the school board wholely different to his previous jobs - academic prodigy, rather then a grade A - C pass. But he was ready for it, prepared for the tax avoiding elite on mass. He had shaved carefully, dressed with great thought and eaten his breakfast staring out the window, distracted.

Now John was in front of the school's main building at quarter past seven. The weather had finally changed. After two weeks of resplendent skies, a drizzle now fell on the town. Under a black umbrella he stood looking at the wide stone steps that led to the entrance - a large door wrought in iron and dark wood. Students would not be arriving for an hour or so, so John took a moment to watch the sleeping school alone, before the sound of wet Land Rover tires and suitcase wheels filled the streets. After a few minutes the rain suddenly intensified and reluctantly he allowed the moment to pass, making his way up the sodden steps, through the door and into the gloam of the building.

It had been Mike Stamford who had convinced him to apply for the job. Mike, on his way out as resident Head of Science, had needled John into going for an interview. An old friend from medical school, John had never escaped the feeling that Stamford had disliked his decision to join the army. The last Headteacher had been on the surface a cheerful man, ruddy in his tweeds, on his arm a home county beauty who had been admired by staff and student alike - and who had left to be a government advisor to the Education Secretary, obviously shrewder than anyone had thought. And so John has entered a vetting process so searching that candidates for Supreme Court Judge would have expected no less. There had been endless rounds of interviews, endless tasks set to determine his skill with strategy and budgeting. Somehow he had come through the other side as the strongest applicant and now… and now here he was.

Inside, the dark porch led back into the building and after another pair of doors came a square hall from which up stairs and through leading corridors all the classrooms in the main building could be found. It had a high vaulted ceiling of carved stone and long low-lying stained glass windows that reminded John of the gothic cathedral in Glasgow. At eight o'clock the rest of the staff would meet here to formal greet the new Headteacher though John had met them all briefly during the summer at his induction and subsequent meetings with the Heads of Department and Housemasters. Then at nine o'clock students would arrive and settle into dormitories, greet their friends, ignore their parents. At two o'clock he would give his first assembly to welcome back the boarders and introduce himself. But for now, John sat on the bottom step of the staircase and waited.


	2. Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka

The assembly had gone well John supposed. The students had filed into the Speech Room, all five hundred or so of them, boaters cluched in their hands, for him to take to the podium and give his maiden address. There was certainly a lot of adrenalin. This was a key moment. There was a danger of the new head saying too much, too early. But John felt like he had set an appropriate tone and the boys had been suprisingly responsive, laughing at the jokes in John's speech, and giving a round of applause once he had finished.

Now he was taking a tour of the boarding quarters, which were scattered across the grounds, to meet the Head Prefect of each house. Evening fell at Hartlow; the school seemed alien in the dying summer gloom. Before, long ago, in the days of his childhood, dreamlike in their remembrance, John felt happy whenever he happened to find himself in an unfamiliar place: whether it was a little hamlet, or some surburb, the inquisitive eyes of a child found a great deal of interest there. That evening every building, everything that bore the mark of some noticable peculiarity, made John pause in mild amazement. The enormity of the place was finally sinking in. For God's sake, thought John, this place is bloody massive. On his previous tour the school had seemed large, sprawling out across the hill and the acre or so of park land the school had owned since the 1700s did not fail to impress Dr John Watson. But with the influx of people it was as if the boys had made Hartlow seem ever bigger.

John was finally on the home stretch as he walked up the path to the final building, Copper Beeches. Dividing the school into eight boarding houses made it possible to deliver a high level of pastoral care, he had been informed. House Masters and their families lived in the Houses, and the House Master kept a watchful eye over the welfare, personal and academic, of every boy in his care. For parents, he was the main point of contact with the School. Every House also had several House Tutors, appointed from amongst the teaching staff and a Head Prefect, chosen from the sixth-form. There were no dormitories: a boy shared his room with a boy of the same age for the first six terms and thereafter had a room to himself. The rooms were very much each individual student's own place, his home for the term. Although they worked together in the context of the school as a whole, each House had its own character and conventions. Competition was fierce, rivalries long standing, and from what he had been told arguements between houses could get heated.

Copper Beeches was one of the oldest and more beautiful boarding houses at Hartlow but there didn't seem to be any lights on in the dark brick building as John Watson gave a sharp knock on the front door. Almost immediately the door was pulled open. 'I'm sorry, it took longer than I was expecting to get round to all eight of you.' John said and gave a wry smile as he was welcomed over the threshold.

'Don't worry about it, I'm afraid everyone else has gone to bed now. Sorry John your obviously not that much of a draw.' Greg Lestrade was a good guy, ask anyone. In the short time he had known him, John had found that out quickly. House Masters had a reputation of being quite hit or miss when it came to personality, for instance Jabez Wilson over at Spaldings House was known for being a short ginger Scotsman nobody wanted to get in the way of, but Lestrade had worked hard to earn respect from the boys and was popular.

They chatted briefly in the hallway, Greg informing him that the general consensus on John's arrival had been positive. 'I even heard one of the fifth formers say you seemed like 'an alright guy' - high praise indeed Dr Watson.'

'Well, how flattering,' John replied with a laugh. 'Should we get on with this meet and greet then.'

'Sure, just to tell you the Prefect situation is slightly differe-' Greg was interrupted as the door to the common room was yanked open. A dark haired boy gestured for them to enter.

There was a dark fire burning in the grate and only a handful of lamps offered any further illumination in the warm red papered room. 'Who made the fire?' John asked. 'It's only just September.'

The boy smiled. 'I had to burn some things.' He reached forward and shook John's hand. Greg gave a slight nod to reassure John that this answer, though strange, was not out of place.

'Pleasure to meet you, and you're the House Prefect here then. Great. Well I'm looking forward to working with you and the rest of the houses this year. You're an important part of the smooth running of the school and if you have any ideas or issues you want to discuss then don't hesitate to email or come and speak to me in person.' John tried to say this casually but on its eighth round this phrase came off rather forced.

'Sherlock.' Greg spoke the name softly.

They continued to discuss the terms events, John asking him if he was serious about becoming Head Boy, a position chosen after the October half term which all House Prefects were eligible to, and he replied yes. John thought he looked quite the ambitious kind; he was confident and seemed at home in his neat uniform, happily occupying his position as Hartlow elite.

John was just about to wrap it up, make his excuses and close the book on his first day, on the job that he had waited sixteen months to fill, when Lestrade spoke again.

'Come on now. Sorry about this Dr Watson. Sherlock get up and make your presence felt.'

The three of them turned to the back of the room and sure enough there was a shadow leant against the wall that John had failed to see. He pushed himself off the wall and slunk towards them, growing clearer as he came closer to the fire, illuminating the curls of his hair with copper twists. He cleared his throat quietly, then spoke. 'Lestrade has obviously omitted to inform you that at Copper Beeches there are two House Prefects, one being myself and the other', here he gestured, if not offensively, but disdainfully at his peer with a flick of his wrist, 'being James Moriarty.' They shook hands.

Sometimes Greg Lestrade despaired of Sherlock Holmes. To meet their new head, Greg had specifically begged Sherlock to make no unsettling deductions, no cutting remarks, begged him to try and make a good impression - even if he could determine a man's entire history in his choice of suit and how long it had been since his last haircut. The student had agreed but was set on having the last laugh. As soon as Dr Watson had joined them in the common room, Lestrade had seen the cold look in the boy's eye as he ripped John to shreds, noting every quirk, from the teacher's voice to his cufflinks. He had stared fixedly at the man's shoes for thirty seconds before Greg had stopped him. And he had stayed sullenly silent until the House Master had to intervene.

John tried to engage in polite conversation with the boarder but found him unresponsive. The boy had dispensed with his blazer and tie, discarded his jumper on one of the overstuffed sofa, and was wearing his school shirt untucked and open at the throat. Sherlock was barefoot, a further rebellion against the ceremony of the meeting. He was tall, taller than John, making the new Headmaster feel even more ill at ease.

Finally John brought his small talk to an awkward end: giving his apologies but he really had to get home. He said goodbye quickly, repeating his line about the House Prefect's importance. Greg said he would see him tomorrow, James Moriarty gave a devilish smile and a respectful nod and Sherlock Holmes said something odd. John thought about it as he drove home.

'The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes.'

But there was nothing obvious about Sherlock Holmes. To John there was only reflection. It was as if the boy was holding a mirror up to him and anyone else who would listen and saying 'Here, here is how you really are. Not how you imagine yourself or how you wish to be percieved. This is how ugly it all is.'


End file.
